Thy Will Be Done
by leafyaki
Summary: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Lavi subjects the question of fate on the Exorcists. Introspection fic.


**Title**: Thy Will Be Done  
**Summary**: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Lavi subjects the question of fate on the Exorcists. It's a hard thing, leaving it all up to fate. Lavi introspection fic.  
**Notes**: Looking through my portable hard disk, I realized there are many snippets I haven't posted. This is one which seemed complete enough to post.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own D. Gray-man and its characters.

* * *

When it came to living and dying the issue was, of course, whether one believed in fate in the first place.

Fate was the loveliest lady in the Order. Fate was kinda a whore, too. The easiest thing to do when living in the Order was to believe in Fate and use her as one wished. Survived a wipeout of the squad by rogue AKUMAs? Fate had ordained that thou shalt not die, in the name of the Almighty Father Our Lord. Died in the name of the Order? Fate had ordained that thou shalt die, in the name of the Almighty Father Our Lord…oh, and you'll go to heaven too, for all your efforts. There were times when Fate was thrown out of the window and statistics and materials and chemicals were brought in – those were times when Destiny is in Our Hands and hope was gleaned from positivism. Fate served you only when you needed her after all, it wasn't a big deal.

But it sure made things a lot easier, and when things didn't quite make sense Fate was brought into the picture.

It wasn't so much that he _did_ believe in fate, more the fact that he was curious (about the Order, about the people, about the war) that had led to him asking the question, to nearly everyone.

Kanda was a sourpuss of the worst kind, so he concluded that such a being would never believe in fate. Never did hurt trying.

"Yu," he said, and as he had predicted there was a glare sent his way.

When the question came, "So, do you believe in fate or what?" Kanda simply scoffed and walked away.

He had seen that lotus before (he was a top-rate sneak in the Order after all) so he kinda knew, _ah_, Kanda Yu was not a believer in fate. He was the type who would rage against the world armed with nothing more than his Innocence, believing that it'd somehow lead him closer to the goal. Kanda Yu didn't give a fuck for humanity, but he probably did give a fuck for something closer to him. Alma maybe, he thought.

Then again, if he didn't believe in fate, would he keep that lotus flower, watching its petals drop off one by one? As if it were pushing him into acting, moving one step closer to his goal.

Kanda never yielded many answers anyway, so he went straight ahead to Lenalee.

Lenalee never believed in fate. She couldn't.

Or, perhaps there had been a time when she did. When she had somehow held the belief that one day this would all end and Komui would be there every step of the way to support her. Not that he wasn't, now, but blind faith had become harder and harder to hold on to.

"I believe," she said, eyes glittering and hands clenched around her tea cup, "that we go out to get what we want. Nothing more, nothing less."

Nothing more, nothing less. Bookman had said the same thing once, we decide what we want to do. Humans decide what they want to do.

Then her shoulders slumped and she said, quietly, "But maybe we can also hope that God is on our side…I don't know."

I don't know, I don't know – that was a good way to put it. One never knows. One never knew in this war that everybody was too tired to fight.

Chaoji thought it was fate that had brought him to join the Order. He was not comfortable talking too much about it, though.

"If I weren't saved by Anita, and if I didn't have them as my family…I wouldn't have this, the…Innocence, now."

Chaoji was a good man, and so maybe that was why he was called away by Tiedoll then. Since he didn't really deserve that one green eye piercing into him after all.

Cause and effect, that was what this world was, he thought. _If_ Anita hadn't brought him in, and _if_ they didn't become like family.

But what ifs never really worked, history had taught him that. So it was all cause and effect, really. If a carriage were to crash into a human, there were thousands of things that could have led up to that. The wind could have been blowing differently, causing a dog to chase the scent of a cat, causing the man to trip over the dog into the road, causing the horses to screech from terror and the driver to yell, and then the man got run over. Fate was useless…God was useless?

Miranda believed in fate, too.

"Because if, if…if Allen and Lenalee hadn't come to find me, then, then I would have…"

When probed further, she said, "Yes, if I weren't such a, a failure in life…I wouldn't have wished that the next day, and the next, and the next…wouldn't come. Yes. That must be it. Yes…so I'm here…now?"

She looked dreadfully confused. He supposed it wasn't fair that he was foisting this on her. He could break out that smile anytime, and she didn't deserve it.

He hummed and murmured vague words and walked down the hallway, wondering if a vampiric friend could provide an answer to this.

"But if we conjecture that the ghost-girl didn't feed me the vitamin thing…" The man bowed his head in thought, white stripe of hair swaying back and forth. He stared at it, hypnotized for a while. If we conjecture…did people speak like that?

Maybe that thing called fate had made it as such. But anyway.

"No," the man said a little uncertainly, a little slower, but with a sort of grim determination in his eyes. "Everything is the cause of something else – is there a reason you ask this, L – "

His name had been the result of cause and effect as well. There was no denying that.

"Lion" in Hebrew. Irony of ironies. How was he like a lion? Just because it sounded halfway cool, and he had seen it in a book and had thought, hey, sounds fun, maybe.

Maybe.

No reason he asked. The man probably thought it all had to do with Innocence. How and why was one chosen by the Innocence, anyway? Cause? Fate? Strength of will, circumstance, lack of luck, hate for AKUMA, love for AKUMA –

Love for AKUMA.

Allen never had a straight answer for anything.

"There _is_ fate," he said, absently.

He fiddled a lot with everything. Timcanpy was often the unlucky victim of that. His cheeks were pulled and released with a twang.

"But don't we do things because we can, too?"

Is there a God, he seemed to be asking – do we do things because God makes us, or do we do things because God doesn't ask us to and we have a choice to do things?

Interesting, those. Allen doesn't believe in a God though.

Why would God take Mana away from me, his eyes seemed to be saying.

"Because," and he knew he would hate himself later for saying this easily, "you are The Destroyer of Time." He could feel, and Allen could too, the capital letters looming.

Allen smiled faintly, cold sunshine reflecting on his white white hair.

"Yes," he whispered into air, "we are moved by both fate and ourselves."

Now _that_ was intriguing.

"You're going, cause-and-effect, aren't you?" Allen asked, in an all too knowing way.

"Yes," he admitted, letting some sheepishness slip into his voice. Yeah, God wasn't there.

Allen's lips were fascinating to look at. They twisted into something cruel and cold. Maybe it was the Fourteenth.

How much of the Fourteenth was Allen and how much was Allen himself?

Maybe Allen always had that smile from the beginning.

Allen smiled, and said, "Why do you have Innocence?"

He didn't know. He never really knew. It had been there for a while. Bookman just hadn't brought him in until he was ready and it was time.

A hammer. A hammer meant to serve an unfounded justice.

He had once slammed it several times against the ground, the ground was a big pedestal.

Fire, wood, water, heaven, metal – vaguely Chinese. Maybe he had some Chinese blood in him?

Had he been made up of a confluence of fate or a confluence of causes?

"A certain kind of balance," Allen said softly, playing with Timcanpy's soft-hard cheeks, "the five elements?"

How would _he_ know about that? Then again, perhaps it was arrogance on his part to assume that everyone was less educated than he was. Allen had been a travelling clown and midget after all. A travelling fool.

"Balance…you don't have that. How many have been unlocked?"

He was sure it was the Fourteenth talking now. Maybe the Fourteenth knew a lot about Innocence? Surviving so long in the world was surely enough time to gain this kind of knowledge, random or not.

A few only – "You have at least ten."

No harm in admitting that yes, he did have at least ten seals to choose from.

The lips twisted again. "Fate – or human choice?"

Human choice to have ten seals and a balance to maintain?

Seemed ridiculous, even to him.

"Innocence don't follow normal laws, I should think." Allen held up his left arm when he said that. True, Innocence followed the order of mankind – but wouldn't its form take the order of fate?

Now he was confused too.

Allen Walker was a strange being, who believed in fate and in human choice too. He wondered what to make of that.

Maybe he can name his next (would he have a next?) being Choice. Or Fate. Wouldn't that be interesting – or maybe fate would make it such that his next name would be Bookman, destined to record the follies of humans?

Oh, the irony.

His lips twisted up, and he thought it was something close to that cold smile Allen was aiming at the tabletop. He smiled at the boy, and got a smile back, sunshine coming down between them and hitting the tabletop.


End file.
